


A Relationship in a Hundred Moments

by jesymphony



Series: A Relationship in a Hundred Moments [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: 100 prompts, Angst, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesymphony/pseuds/jesymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the 100 Prompt Challenge, all with a primary focus on Lightning and a major focus on the Lightning/Snow relationship. Drabbles take place in several spots around the Final Fantasy XIII canon, including spoilers for the whole series as well as some headcanon for post-Final Fantasy XIII-3. Some drabbles are R-rated, but the majority are suitable for Teen and Up.</p><p>This work has been at least two years in the making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. Tired; 3. Sunrise; and 8. Floor

**Author's Note:**

> The table I use for the 100 Prompts can be found here - http://100-situations.livejournal.com/573083.html

 

  1. Tired




Lightning runs. Time is ticking down and she cannot afford to be tired. Her muscles ache, sweat drips from her face and she can't feel her feet. She's been fighting for hours, foe after foe and she would have given up, found a place to hide out, but she didn't. Somehow Lightning keeps going, running headlong into enemies that would hurt innocents, wielding her gun-blade again and again and again.

And it's not the clock that keeps her from running away. In her mind all she can see is Snow next to her, just as exhausted as she is but still fighting for what he knows is right. Fighting until he can no longer stand. Fighting to keep as many people safe as he can.

She runs.

 

* * *

 

  1. Sunrise




Sunrise was always just a time for her. Time to be up, to start training, to leave Serah alone in a too empty house. During her ordeal sunrise became a deadline, the sun cresting over the horizon a sight to be dreaded.

Now the dawning of each new day brings peace. She wakes at sunrise, heart racing in anticipation for the next battle, and Snow's arms wind about her, his breath hot against her skin as he tugs her back down into bed, rumbling, “Go back to sleep, Claire.”

 

* * *

 

  1. Floor




The slender girl with the rose coloured hair, all of half his weight and practically petite in comparison, glares down at him with ice in her eyes barely breaking a sweat. And all Snow can think of as he lies on the floor looking up at her, hurting in a dozen different places from the blows she'd landed, is how many more of her hits he would take just to see a smile on her face.

 

 


	2. 18. True; and 23. False

  1. True




She has trouble sometimes, remembering which world she's in. Sometimes a memory digs its teeth into her so hard she can't break free and she's reaching for the weapon she doesn't wear anymore, hard-eyed and heart pumping as she prepares to leap into a battle that doesn't exist. She sees monsters everywhere, hears the damned ticking of a clock that races her toward certain failure, feels the loss of a sister who lives only thirty minutes away. She gets lost sometimes, lost so far into a world of horror that she sometimes feels like she hasn't saved anyone at all and she's still locked within Chaos, in an unending battle against a foe that will never truly die.

But then there's his hand on her shoulder, his fingers tightening around hers, his gentle voice murmuring, “Serah is safe. You saved everyone. You're with me, Light. You're here with me.”

And the memories fade as the beautiful, sweet truth reasserts itself into her mind and she squeezes his hand, letting him know that she heard him. As she always hears him. And she smiles.

 

* * *

 

  1. False




He has trouble sometimes, reassuring himself that she won't leave. Sometimes a memory of her, snarling and vicious as she lays into him flashes into his mind and he can't help but feel that perhaps there's still a part of her which hates him. It kills him to imagine it. To think that he's clinging too hard to her and one day he'll wake and she'll have left. It's all too easy to imagine her cold and distant, drifting further away from him until he can't hold on no matter how hard he tries. Sometimes he believes he loves her more than she loves him, which isn't difficult to do. She's always been too good for him. Too beautiful, too perfect, too ethereal. Sometimes he can terrify himself into believing she's one foot out of the door.

But then she'll blush when he catches her looking at him, turning her face away to veil her embarrassment behind rose coloured hair. She'll reach out for him, entwining her fingers with his as she rests her head against his arm. She'll brush a kiss against his mouth in the morning, thinking him still asleep as she rises at dawn.

The other day, when she came home and found the kitchen a mess but the dining table beautifully, if clumsily, laid for a dinner for two. When he tucked a rose behind her ear, babbling on about anniversaries and potentially burned meat and she silences him by throwing her arms around his neck, clinging tight as she presses herself against him. When she whispers, soft as a kiss, gentle as a breath into his skin, “I love you.”

And he knows then that even thinking she would leave him willingly would be enough to make her punch him into next week.

 


	3. 2. Back Alley

  1. Back Alley




Lightning is on patrol and receives radio notice of a group of drunks harassing women in a bar, attempting to force them out of the back door into the alley. Captain Amodar hisses through the static, “Maybe you should wait for backup,” and that's all the impetus she needs to head there by herself. She's only just joined up, and she's getting sick of some of the men teasing her about how delicate she is and how she shouldn't strain herself.

Of course the men who mock her don't have the balls to fight her in hand to hand combat, which is how she usually deals with males who leer too long and catcall too loud at her.

She strides into the bar, taking notice of everyone taking notice of her uniform and her weapon. Without a word the bartender points her toward the back door. Lightning moves, halfway there with her long strides when he says, “But he's already got it under control, Miss.”

Lightning turns back to face the bartender. She couldn't possibly have heard him right over the music that's playing. “Who's got it under control?”

“The blond guy in the long coat?” The bartender shrugs. “I tried to tell him a Guardian was coming but he sallied forth before I could stop him.”

She sighs. She hates it when civilians get involved in a Corps matter and try to play hero. They always end up getting hurt and she always ends up having to explain it. She pushes open the door, half expecting to see the blond in a bloody mess on the alley floor while she has to run off the drunks around the obstruction.

Lightning cannot contain her surprise when the door smacks into an absolute behemoth of a man, a full head taller than her and about twice as broad. He stumbles back, his face wrinkled in discomfort and she has to remember to keep her tongue in her mouth when he looks at her and she is hit by inescapable, inexorable attraction.

There is something beautiful in the sharpness of his features. Something soft and inviting along the harsh lines of his face. He is probably a few years older than her at most, but she can see the man that he will become. And the knowledge tugs at her, pulls at her so strongly she almost stumbles toward him as if magnetised. It takes her a second to remember she is meant to be dealing with potentially violent drunks and her hand rests on the handle of her gun-blade. It takes her a second too long to react defensively.

Crap. Amodar would crow if he knew she was distracted by a pretty face.

But the man sees her hand move toward her weapon and he immediately raises both of his in a gesture of surrender. “Easy. I'm one of the good guys.”

Her eyes refocus from his face to the strands of his hair straggling out of the ridiculous bandana around his head. Blond. The civilian. She sighs but doesn't relax. “Sir, this is a Guardian Corps matter. Step aside.”

His blue blue eyes blink at her and Lightning is reminded suddenly of the puppy Serah once kept. “You're the Guardian? But you're so-”

She glares at him, daring him to finish, just daring him to-

“So young.”

What a joke. The blond is two years older than her at most. So Lightning allows her hand to clench tighter around her gun blade. Allows him to see it before repeating, “Sir. Step aside.”

He shrugs. Then he does. And she is surprised for a second time because behind him is a heap of three men, all in various states of unconsciousness or wishing they were. Moans and grunts of pain occasionally emanate from the pile, all clearly incapacitated and no young women in sight.

“I saw what they were doing and I thought I'd have a little chat with them.”

She only just suppresses her urge to jump when his voice resonates too close to her ear, and she is suddenly instantly aware of how close he is standing to her. How much taller he is. She's not used to being towered over. It makes her feel small. Vulnerable.

She doesn't like it. “You were told a Guardian was coming,” she snaps, trying to hide how she moved away from him like a skittish rabbit. “You should have stayed inside and not gotten involved. Sir.”

“Snow.”

She blinks at him, so abruptly derailed from her train travelling along the moral high ground that her indignant words are lost to her. She stutters, “S- I'm sorry?”

“My name's Snow. Not 'sir'.” He leans in, a smile teasing the corners of his lips and she is entranced. “What's your name?”

She is so dazzled she begins, “Cla- Lightning,” she shakes herself. “My name is Lightning.”

His smile grows, full and beautiful and she can suddenly see the sun in a dank, dark little alley behind a bar. “Good to meet you. Lightning.”

 


	4. 16. Peace; and 54. Patient

  1. Peace




For Snow peace is long, lingering meals. Slow walks with no destination in mind. Lazy afternoons with nowhere to be. Peace is contentment, sensuous and soporific, warmth that seeps into him and surrounds him. He finds cause for peace everywhere, and now the sensation echoes with his every breath in this new world filled with Light.

For Lightning peace is with him, his arms around her and the world fades away to the quiet beat of his heart.

 

* * *

 

  1. Patient




Claire had always been a woman of few words, never saying more than she'd needed to and only after she'd carefully considered it. Her every action was deliberate, an efficiency to her movement that came from her long training in the military.

Snow had expected he'd be waiting for a while. He'd sprung one on her, and he knew she was working just to comprehend what had occurred. She'd never been good with surprises. But he was content to wait. Content to watch the expression on her face, see the dawning comprehension in her eyes. He'd always loved the way her creamy skin coloured a rose shade just deeper than her hair when she was going through high emotion.

He was not afraid of how she was going to answer. So he drank in the moment, cherishing it, knowing this was a rare occurrence to catch her so off guard.

Time stretched out. Then Claire moved off her seat to kneel in front of him, placing one hand over his and her other hand on his cheek as she leaned in. “ _Yes_ ,” she whispered, her voice choked.

Snow took the ring he held in his fingers and slipped it onto her ring finger, the rose quartz shining against the gold band and glowing amidst the radiance of her skin. He smiled like a fool at the sight of his ring on her, tears swimming in his eyes with the force of his happiness as she pressed a kiss to his mouth with a soft laugh.

 


	5. 49. Cold; and 47. Kill

  1. Cold




Lightning has always been independent. Perfectly capable of taking care of herself and watching out for a group of others. It's what made her so ideal as a member of the Guardian Corps. She could disarm an enemy in dozens of different ways, dispatch them quickly and painlessly or with fresh new ideas of what would hurt the most. She is the art in martial arts, a prodigy in both defence and offence. If there is one thing Lightning can do, it is being a formidable deterrent to anyone who would seek to cause harm upon her or those she protects.

Which is precisely why Snow worries. He fears that one day she will be taken by surprise, overwhelmed after underestimating an opponent. Someone who knows her weaknesses, is able to exploit them and uses the knowledge to hurt her or worse. The thought that he would discover her one day, alone, broken, hurt or dead is the fuel for most of his nightmares. The image of her too still, vibrantly, sickeningly red, the colour dyeing her beautiful rose hair into something horrific – he can see it all too clearly and he can almost feel the cooling warmth of her blood as it seeps through his hands.

He cries out and he hears her speak his name softly, firmly and he fights awake. Snow reaches blindly out with a gasp, finds Lightning's arms tight around him, his head pillowed against her and he grips back twice as tight, panting out the cold and breathing in the giving heat of her.

He never says but she can guess what the subject of his nightmares are about, the way he holds her tight enough to bruise, the way he asks her in the morning if he can accompany her on her patrol. And she never says, but he can guess what the subject of her nightmares are about too, the way she lets herself be held, the way she allows his presence by her side that day.

She'll brush a hand against his arm. He'll press his hand against her lower back. And the cold that grips both of them slowly, but surely, fades away.

 

* * *

 

  1. Kill




Lightning has faced down monsters of every imaginable kind. She has hunted and been hunted by creatures of the four legged, two legged, and sometimes no legged variety. She has mercilessly dispatched gods without so much as an unsure thought in her head.

Snow sneaks up behind her and latches his mouth to her throat, imitating the bloodsucking creature they'd watched in a film last night. He snickers low in his throat as she yelps.

It's all fun and games until she's one finger twitch away from ripping his head off his shoulders for scaring her so bad.

 


End file.
